A Robust Region Control Approach for Simultaneous Trajectory Tracking and Physical Human-Robot Interaction

In this work, the uncertainty and disturbance estimator (UDE)-based robust region tracking controller for a robot manipulator is developed to achieve the moving target region trajectory tracking and the compliant human-robot interaction simultaneously. Utilizing the back-stepping control approach, the UDE is seamlessly fused into the region tracking control framework to estimate and compensate the model uncertainty and external disturbance, such as unknown payload, unmodeled joint coupling effect and friction. The regional feedback error is derived from the potential function to drive the robot manipulator end-effector converging into the target region, where the robot manipulator can be passively manipulated based on the needs of human to achieve the compliant physical human-robot interaction. Extensive experimental studies are carried out with a universal robots 10 manipulator to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method for moving region trajectory tracking, handling unknown payload and compliant physical human-robot interaction. The superior robustness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by comparison with the existing controller under the adverse effect of unknown payload. The humanrobot interaction is achieved in a shared autonomy manner with the cooperation of the manipulator and the human subject to accomplish the temperature measurement task, where the variation in human-subject height and the complexity of aiming the thermometer are successfully accommodated.